Indus River Valley Civilization (jan 1, 2100 BC – jan 1, 1800 BC)

Description:

It is believed that the earliest inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent journeyed eastward into the Indus Valley. Here archaeologists have found ruins of a highly advanced civilization at such sites as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.

Evidence of grid-patterned streets, multistoried houses and tenement blocks, excellent sewer and septic-tank drainage, enormous granaries, temples, and baths for ritual cleansing all point to an advanced urban civilization. There are also indications of trade connections with Mesopotamia and the Middle East, the Indus providing a route to the Arabian Sea from hundreds of miles inland.

Over the centuries natural disasters—perhaps earthquakes or great river floods—appear to have weakened the urban civilization of the Indus Valley. This left little resistance to invasion by waves of nomadic tribes from Central Asia, generally referred to as Aryans. They drove most of the city dwellers away from the river, so that the ancient culture that had developed around the Indus now moved to southern India, where today the Dravidian race continues as one of the major Indian ethnic groups.